


Ghosts

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: smallfandomflsh, F/M, past Daryl/Beth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1491475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He glances up, squints at his reflection in the grimy mirror. He's still not used to the stranger looking back at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Far future fic. Written for LJ's smallfandomflsh community for the prompt 'ghost'.
> 
> * * *

Daryl builds the fire quickly and efficiently. He sets yesterday's leftover stew to heat up in the pot, then leans back against the mantle and lets his gaze flit around the room. The house ain't much but it'll do, long as he's quiet. The splintered boards on the windows let in some of the last scattered rays of daylight, striping the old ripped divan in shades of gold and grey. Got a family of mice living in there, but he's inclined to let them be. Ain't quite hungry enough yet to be catching rodents that small. 

He's already added the rusted fireplace poker to his arsenal, and from his supine position on the floor he can't see anything else worthwhile in the room. He'll do another more thorough search once he's got some food in his stomach. 

_"Better watch that stew doesn't boil over," Maggie says._

Daryl sniffs, but he wraps a rag around the handle and lifts the pot away from the flames. There's a bowl buried somewhere in the bottom of his knapsack but there ain't no need for it now. His spoon and the pot are good enough.

He freezes with his spoon scraping the bottom of the pot when he hears the rustle in the long grass outside. His knife slides easily from its sheath and he eases carefully to the window, twitches aside the tattered curtain and squints through one of the gaps in the boards. 

It's a single walker, so gaunt that it is barely more than mottled skin stretched almost to the breaking point over yellowing bone. It staggers through the overgrown grass, heading north like most of the others he's seen. Heading toward the fire down by Bixby. 

He can still scent it in the air, feels the grit of the ashes on his skin even this far south. He'd detoured close enough to the town to see the flames lighting up the sky, to see the grisly remains nailed to the crosses. He'd edged away when he heard the singing coming from the church and saw the people flitting among the buildings. 

He's stealthy, but he can't be sure he wasn't spotted as he faded back into the tree line. 

_"Can't stay here," Rick says. "Gotta move on at first light."_

Daryl grunts, keeps an eye on the walker until it stumbles past the house and disappears beyond a bend in the road. 

He uses a little of his water to rinse out the pot before he stashes it back in his bag, packs up the rest of his things so that he's ready to head out at dawn. He makes another round of the house, moving more slowly now that he knows it's clear, and finds a crocheted blanket on the top shelf of the closet in the master bedroom. The stitches are big and there's a gaping hole where some critter got into it, but it's still the warmest thing he's found in months. He drapes it over his arm, hesitates on his way out of the room to lift a framed photo from the top of the dresser. He uses the edge of the blanket to wipe away the years of dust, gazes down at the smiling face of an elderly woman. He wonders if she was the one who made the blanket, painstakingly stitching together granny squares with arthritic fingers. Maybe as a gift for her child or her grandchild. Maybe because she had nothing else to offer. Or nothing else to do.

He glances up, squints at his reflection in the grimy mirror. He's still not used to the stranger looking back at him. In his mind's eye he is still thirty-five, despite the ache in his bones that awakens him most mornings. He's still not sure when the lines on his face became crevasses that etch deeply into his skin, or when his hair became more grey than brown. 

_"Happens to the best of us," Hershel says. "Every one of those grey hairs is a little wisdom earned."_

Daryl shakes his head as he turns away from the mirror. He sets the photo back where he found it when he leaves the room.

The fire has burned down to embers by the time he does a final sweep. But the wind has picked up, whistling through the gaps in the boarded up windows and making the dust that blankets the home eddy and swirl. Daryl shivers, swipes a hand through his beard and considers building up the fire, risking the flickering light being seen from a distance. In the end he damps down the last of the sparks, stretches out on the cold plank floor and relies on his new blanket for warmth.

He is almost asleep when he feels the shift in the air at his back. He sighs, the tension in his shoulders easing imperceptibly, the moaning of the wind suddenly not so forlorn. He keeps his eyes closed, feels the press of her as she curls against his back, the knuckles of her hand brushing lightly against his spine as she settles. Daryl burrows down into the blanket, sees her in his mind's eye the way she looked that day in the field – the way she pushed her golden hair back from her face, and the bright, inquisitive look in her eyes. Her hand soft and warm and so small in his as he led her to the food spread out on the blanket. The way her eyes sparkled when she realized what he'd done, and the curve of her lips as she smiled; the curl of her fingers against the nape of his neck and the urgent press of her lips; the way their limbs tangled together on the tattered blanket.

_"Sleep," Beth says against his ear. "You're safe here."_

He resists the urge to turn and look at her, because then she'll be gone like a wisp in the wind, and he needs her. He's given up caring whether the ghosts he carries are real or imagined. He only knows that they give him comfort, help him to carry on. That's enough.


End file.
